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Relativistic magnetosonic solitons with reflected particles in electron–positron plasmas

Phys. Fluids 31, 839 (1988); doi:10.1063/1.866765

Issue Date: April 1988

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David Alsop and Jonathan Arons
Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720 and Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550
The presence of magnetically reflected particles is shown to allow the existence of large amplitude magnetosonic solitary waves in relativistic electron–positron plasmas. If the flow is assumed to contain a single loop of gyrating particles, self-consistent structures are found with peak field amplitudes (B/B[infinity])max<(11)1/2, where B[infinity] is the magnitude of the upstream magnetic field. In contrast, without reflected particles, the amplitude of a relativistic magnetosonic soliton is restricted to (B/B[infinity]) −1<2/gamma[infinity], where gamma[infinity] is the upstream Lorentz factor. Therefore, if gamma[infinity]>>1, reflected particles greatly increase the allowable amplitudes of these nonlinear waves. It is also shown that when gamma[infinity]>>1, the wave properties are independent of gamma[infinity], and are completely parametrized by the ratio of the Poynting flux to the kinetic energy flux in the upstream flow. Some new features of solitary waves without reflected particles are also derived, and a heuristic model is presented which gives a simple physical interpretation of many of these results. Physics of Fluids is copyrighted by The American Institute of Physics.
History: Received 20 August 1987; accepted 5 January 1988
Permalink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.866765
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KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords
PACS
  • 52.35.Sb
    The physics of plasmas and electric discharges Waves, oscillations, and instabilities in plasma Solitons; BGK modes
  • 52.35.Tc
    The physics of plasmas and electric discharges Waves, oscillations, and instabilities in plasma Shock waves
  • 52.60.+h
    The physics of plasmas and electric discharges Relativistic plasma
  • 95.30.Qd
    Fundamental astronomy and astrophysics; instrumentation, techniques, and astronomical observations Fundamental aspects of astrophysics Hydromagnetics and plasmas
  • YEAR: 1988

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PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN:
0031-9171 (print)   1089-7666 (online)
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REFERENCES (15)
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